ARCHAEOLOGICAL LANDSCAPES AND TEXTUAL IMAGES - A STUDY OF THE SACRED GEOGRAPHY OF LATE-MEDIEVAL BALLABGARH

This study explores the disjunction between notions of religious space in the textual tradition and the construction of sacred geography on the ground. It does this by examining some elements that make up the s acred geography of medieval Ballabgarh, the northern segment of Farida bad which shares its northern border with Delhi. The paper argues that religious structures like temples and mosques which are generally reg arded as constituent components of Hindu and Muslim sacred geography w ere not an integral part of village geography. Where they were present , the components of commemoration could be varied, animated by element s of local and dan history, rather than scriptural notions of cosmic s pace. Moreover, much of what was central to folk worship - open air vi llage shrines, anonymous graves of pirs, 'miraculous' trees, a local g oddess of the floods - is not textually imaged. Consequently, Ballabga rh's religious geography can be constituted only through the microcosm of archaeology and oral history.